Musings
by difficile
Summary: 100-word drabbles that take place in the eyes of Balthier and Vaan during the one-year gap after the Bahamut. Requests are considered in reviews. Balthier/Vaan.
1. troubling thoughts

_Li – Troubling Thoughts_

The abandon of his grief cannot be measured by the length of the _Strahl's_ wings, nor the vast infinity of the bleak sky. Flaxen locks tousle in the wind's quiet susurration and is proven fruitless in its attempt to placate the grief-stricken young man beneath the thick, floating clouds.

Unequivocal pronouncements he knows all too well cease to be incontrovertibly true despite Vaan's undaunted attempts to assure one thing:_ they are wrong_.

The sky once liberated the teen from his melancholy musings, but now it does nothing but hold one question after the fall of the Bahamut:

_Does Balthier live?_


	2. breakaway

_xxviii - breakaway_

Balthier shields his eyes from the blinding rays of Dalmasca's marveled sunrise, allowing deprived irises to adjust on their own accord – too long has he been squandering in uncertainty to afford to lose such a precious treasure like sight. He takes in a shaky, experimental breath and closes his eyes as the fresh air overwhelmes his senses.

Bahamut's darkness is known no longer.

Fran stands adjacent to him; they both fall into a contemplative, mutual silence. Balthier watches the sun's pastel fingers stretch across the horizon, and wonders how much Vaan has grown since he's been gone.


	3. eternity

* * *

_vii - eternity_

* * *

Nothing is more breathtaking than the sight of a sunrise on Bhujerba. The clouds disperse into an aesthetic pattern across the bleeding sky, and Vaan feels as though he is suspended within nature's wonder as he stands on the edge of Kaff Terrace. He feels the impulse to take another step, just one measly move, to throw himself carelessly into the oblivion of eternity.

Gray eyes look to the sky, and Vaan stands on his toes, reaching up to the many clouds floating aimlessly above him.

He reaches out to eternity, where he prays to grasp a shimmer of hope.


	4. rebirth

_xxiv - rebirth_

It has only been a month since Bahamut fell – a whole month since Balthier set foot on familiar lands. But in that one month Balthier can tell how much Ivalice has changed for the better since the war.

A whole month, yes – a whole month without his airship, without the company of anyone but Fran again…

A whole month without the sight of that headstrong, youthful, beautiful Rabanastran boy.

But Balthier chooses to extend his absence.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder, or so they say.

And his beats ever so fondly already, just at the thought of Vaan's smile.


	5. shadows

_

* * *

_

_l__xxv – shadows_

* * *

It's been two months since Bahamut fell. The ruins litter the Estersand like a scar, and Vaan watches them shimmer in the moonlight every night.

Hope… is waning. But he stands strong; he continues to believe he's out there. Somewhere. _Anywhere_.

Vaan looks around the Strahl; it's empty, quiet. Like she's just waiting for her rightful owner to take her again, to climb the skies with her like old times.

And Vaan waits, too. Wishing. _Praying_, that maybe one morning he'll wake up to a cocky grin and warm, chestnut eyes.

But now he can only see shadows.


	6. separation

_lv - separation._

Balthier craves to climb the skies again. Three months have passed; the bounty on his head has deteriorated, replaced instead with heroic myths of two pirates, two tragic heroes, who saved Dalmasca. He travels with Fran, sweating and plundering by foot like _thieves;_ Balthier silently questions whether he can still call himself a sky pirate.

"You miss him, as you do the sky," Fran says one night, the dancing flames of the fire spiraling into the desert's darkness; they camp only a day's walk from Rabanastre.

Balthier sighs, pauses, nods. Two sets of his wings lie in the Royal City.


	7. thirty three percent

_xi – thirty-three percent._

Vaan's smile is monolithic, tinged with something wet and warm that continues to cascade gently down his cheek – tears. Trembling, he reaches out.

"You're back," His voice cracks gently, like ice across glass. He does not wish to break this fragile moment. Balthier stands in front of him, and his smile offers nothing; it fades as he speaks.

"Didn't I tell you he never dies?"

Vaan laughs, a strangled noise between a choke and a sob, and touches him.

...The image wavers, fades; Vaan awakens. Desert mirages continue to plague his dreams.

It has been four months since Bahamut fell.


	8. seeing red

_xxxiii – seeing red_

A stream threading near the Babbling Vale holds the hardened scowl of a pirate who knows better but cares not of consequences. Balthier curses, washing his gash in the gentle current. It has been too long since he has hunted with only one other; five months have passed by and they have forgotten to compensate. Through the rivulets of red mingling with the chill blue, he contemplates heading back.

A shadow passes above; Fran's ears perk and Balthier looks skyward with a furrowed brow.

"The Strahl," Fran states, knowing that shadow anywhere.

Balthier smiles. He has taught his apprentice well.


	9. bitter silence

_lxx - bitter silence_

Twilight's sun throws Vaan's shadow eastward on the Strahl's interior; darkness lingers on the co-pilot seat. Her low murmur is lulling but Vaan is far from tired, for Bhujerba is a two-day flight. Vaan craves the taste of _madhu_ on his tongue, a night to forget heavy burdens with the help of sweet, airy liquid from a colony of the sky.

_"I'll be back soon," he promised Penelo, and she smiled. "You better," she said, her voice cautious. "Don't pull a Balthier on me."_

The joke had not made Vaan laugh. His absence will not last six months.

And counting.


	10. running away

**xiii - running away.**

Balthier lingers in the clawing shadows of the Royal City's aerodome, and watches the current of humes bustle by. They're all the same, the Rabanastrans – bronze skin, light hair, plain diction. Simple – _simple_, yes, anything and everything Vaan is not.

Balthier wishes that this decision could be as simple as his smile.

He is not ready for those eyes, that devotion and loyalty; yet he is here, right _here_, so close to those eyes and that smile and _damnit_.

He can't do it. Vaan isn't ready to know it's too late.

Love is a fleeting bird; Balthier's is long gone.


	11. revelation

**iv - revelation**

The eighth moon cycle comes and goes as quickly as the others have. Hours, days, weeks; they're all the same now.

Nostalgia fuels Vaan to take a trip to Jahara, by foot. There he finds that the Garif, predictably, know more than he.

"The viera and pirate you seek have come and gone cycles ago," the masked creature offers. Oddly enough, it is more disheartening than Vaan anticipated, to know they are alive. Silence strikes him, a thunder spell to the spine. There is still hope.

He returns to Rabanastre in a matter of three days. The Strahl is gone.


End file.
